To disbelieve in magic is to disbelieve in ourselves

The original letter

Transcript

Dear Father Christmas,

First, I should point out my age. I am 40. Yes. Four. Zero. Or 14,682 days, if we are being specific, which I should imagine you have to be, in your job.

I know most of your letters come from a significantly younger demographic, as growing up often means an increasing dependence on REALITY rather than *MAGIC* as a way of reaching goals. But I still believe in MAGIC, and IMPOSSIBILITIES, because life itself is an impossibility, isn’t it?

You know that, I know. The most remarkable thing that has happened to any of us is simply the fact that we are HERE.

When you think of all the odds against our coming-into-existence, all those things that could have happened slightly differently in fallopian tubes and in all those 10,000 generations before us. And the magic is even greater than that, because LIFE itself was never guaranteed. If we had been any one of the *9,000,000* known species it would have still been the same MIRACLE.

And yet we are here, and not as dung-beetles but as HUMANS with the power not only to believe in Father Christmas and to write letters and create ART but also the power to understand the most important thing of all:

THAT WE ARE *ALIVE*

Yet so often we try and reduce this miracle. We get bogged down in un-magic, anti-magic and petty differences. We do not always treat each other, or even ourselves, as the miracles we are. So all I want for CHRISTMAS is for us to see what is already there. One infinite year-round miracle that is BEING ALIVE, and of other people BEING ALIVE, and the very knowledge that life is there and we should appreciate it, and that TO DISBELIEVE IN MAGIC IS TO DISBELIEVE IN OURSELVES.